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Ozy: Sordid Past and Coverups

But it was not until extracurricular societies, including almost exclusively male social fraternities, started to proliferate on college campuses during the 19th century that hazing really came into its own. By the time Mort Leggett entered Cornell in 1873, hazing was a fact of life for many freshmen, usually taking the form of being paddled, getting one’s head shaved or performing some sort of physical challenge. The “preliminaries” that Leggett was told he would have to endure to “earn” membership into Kappa Alpha Society entailed being blindfolded and marched at night up a narrow trail adjacent to a ravine. When the young pledge was left unattended for a moment, he lost his bearings and tumbled into the gorge below. Neither KAS nor any of its members received any punishment, and key details of the incident, including that Leggett had been blindfolded, were omitted from accounts of the time, says Hank Nuwer, editor of Hazing: Destroying Young Lives. “The cover-ups that we see on college campuses today go back all the way to the first fraternity hazing death in 1873.”

Here is the link. I had not heard of a couple of these: Moderator Hank Nuwer Excerpt–there’s more at that link. By Denise-Marie Ordway Every year, college students are injured or killed during events associated with hazing. Often, violence, heavy drinking and humiliation are part of the rituals students endure to gain acceptance into a popular […]

Breaking news from Boston Globe Excerpt: CAMBRIDGE — Harvard University’s controversial clampdown on single-gender clubs came under double-barreled legal fire Monday as six sororities and fraternities filed a pair of sex discrimination lawsuits alleging the school used threats and intimidation against students and violated their rights to free association. Harvard’s policy of penalizing students who […]